We of the United States need above all things to remember that, while
we are by blood and culture kin to each of the nations of Europe,
we are also separate from each of them. We are a new and distinct
nationality. We are developing our own distinctive culture and
civilization, and the worth of this civilization will largely depend
upon our determination to keep it distinctively our own. Our sons and
daughters should be educated here and not abroad. We should freely take
from every other nation whatever we can make of use, but we should
adopt and develop to our own peculiar needs what we thus take, and
never be content merely to copy.
Our nation was founded to perpetuate democratic principles. These
principles are that each man is to be treated on his worth as a man
without regard to the land from which his forefathers came and without
regard to the creed which he professes. If the United States proves
false to these principles of civil and religious liberty, it will have
inflicted the greatest blow on the system of free popular government
that has ever been inflicted. Here we have had a virgin continent on
which to try the experiment of making out of divers race stocks a
new nation and of treating all the citizens of that nation in such a
fashion as to preserve them equality of opportunity in industrial,
civil and political life. Our duty is to secure each man against any
injustice by his fellows.